


Choices

by SniperinaJumper



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Defiance, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slavery, but they're in love, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5611924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SniperinaJumper/pseuds/SniperinaJumper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He makes a choice. Now he must live with the consequences. </p><p>How does a stormtrooper become a person? Here's a maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> This was written fast and loose at five in the morning, because Finn. Also because I've been reading a LOT of various authors slave revolts, and I kept seeing that moment where Finn decides /not/ to shoot. I wanted to explore that, and the mindset he might have. 
> 
> Any comments/discussion are more than appreciated! Drop me a line if you want my skype.

It takes every ounce of courage he has, to  _ not _ fire that trigger. Kylo Ren is there, he’s larger than life, a shadow upon shadows and he drowns in the emptiness that exists between the stars. Kylo Ren, the ghost story of all the Stormtroopers. He’s meant to terrify them, to keep them going in the same direction. The commanders don’t like it, but they’ve drilled into them all that the Knights of Ren are to be obeyed, because they  _ matter _ .    
  
FN-2187 does not matter. He does not matter, not to the people behind him. To the people his fellows are gunning down, though...he makes no difference, one way or another.    
  
It is defiance. Defiance has always been treated with one result, swift and without hesitation.    
  
He does not pull the trigger.    
  
\---------------   
  
Reconditioning is what FN-2187 thinks of, when the whispers at night speak of Hell and the places that damned souls go, when Supreme Leader has no need for your death. What do you have to do to go there, they wonder. It must be better than whatever Snoke does with them. They’re expendendable. It burns, it’s freezing, it’s tearing at his very mind.    
  
At the heart of it, he clings to that one idea, that spark that had carried him through the massacre. It’s that single thought that he’d held onto when everything else whited out under the force of the Reconditioning programming.    
  
I don’t have to pull the trigger. I made a choice.  **_I_ ** made a  **_CHOICE_ ** .    
  
He’s let out of the reconditioning chambers, and given back to command. He’s granted a berth, and he does not sleep.    
  
He made a choice. Now he has to live with the consequences.    
  
\-----------------   
  
He needs a pilot. That’s the conclusion he comes to during the ghost watch, during the time before first shift starts, the last edges of third shift finally going to berth. Around him, his fellows are sleeping, some snoring loud enough to nearly drown out the hammering of his heart in his ears.    
  
He needs a pilot, and he knows of only one that would be able to get them off this ship. The Super Star Destroyer that has been their war machine since before the First Order rose to power. The Imperial Hammer, renamed to the Finalizer. An entire ecosystem of a ship, heavily armored, primed to destroy anything in its path. Absolute in its dominance.    
  
What is he even thinking? This could  _ never _ work. But. He has to try. There’s no other option, not for him. Right now, he’s got a chance. One chance. If they make it back to Starkiller with him on board…   
  
He needs a pilot, and there’s only one in the whole galaxy who can help him right now.    
  
\-----------------------   
  
Nobody ever told him that it would be this easy. This simple. He takes Poe from the torture chamber, takes him to the Tie launch bay. They need small, fast, able to  _ escape _ .    
  
Poe Dameron gives him a  _ name _ and it sits under his skin like a searing brand. He has a  _ name _ . He’s actually a person, not just a stormtrooper. He has a name and he is Finn. He falls a little in love, he thinks even as they scream out of the hangar. He’s been given the greatest gift imaginable.    
  
He’s got a name. He’s got a pilot. He could survive this, if he can get clear of the First Orders hunting dogs.    
  
They fall to the poisoned planet, and he has to count his heartbeats to remember that he is alive, he made it.    
  
Poe didn’t. His jacket is closed in FN-21...no, FINNS fist. It’s the last thing he has to cling to, because their broken TIE is consumed by the desert, crushed until it explodes.    
  
He has to count his heartbeats and each one beats sorrow, grief, guilt. Poe had a mission. Finn can’t finish it, much as he would want to. He’s got to vanish. He’s got to learn how to be real, not just a stormtrooper, not just a  _ tool _ .    
  
\--------------------------   
  
She hits him with her stick and he thinks he falls in love with her. She looks at him like he’s a person, and it’s maybe a little selfish when he takes her hand to yank her into a sprint. They’ve got to  _ run _ and he can’t bring himself to let her get caught in the crossfire. The little droid follows them, and Finn can’t think of a single thing about this that is okay.    
  
But she looks at him as if he’s a person, and names him a Resistance fighter. He goes with it, because anything else right now is death. He’s gotten too far to die now. She treats him like a person, the same way she treats the little droid like a person, and that kind of respect deserves his in return.   
  
He’s made a choice, and now he must live.    
  
\---------------------------------   
  
Poe Dameron is standing on the landing zone, hair a riot of dark curls, suit a bright orange, and Finn is struck dumb by the colors of the man, bright and clear and alive.    
  
The desert had swallowed him. He had  _ seen _ the Tie explode. Felt it in his bones as the concussion force nearly knocked him over.   
  
Poe smells like engine exhaust, plasma discharge, and spices, like some sort of tea. He’s warm and alive and Finn falls a little in love. Poes heart beats under Finns hands, and he wants to time his own to it. He could happily exist in this moment for the rest of eternity, embracing the bright soul who had given him a  _ name _ . Who had made the choice to fight long before Finn even knew it was an option.    
  
  
\----------------------------------   
  
The Resistance listens to him. He gives them the tools to take down the base. He secures himself passage to the base with bluster and a level stare that hides all the screaming inside his head. He should be fleeing. He should be escaping. He should be past the outer rim, beyond the influence of this whole mad scheme.    
  
Rey didn’t make the same choice he did. She shouldn’t suffer for Finns defiance.   
  
He goes and finds her, but she’s gone and rescued herself. He falls in love again, with the way she refuses to be cowed by any force, even Kylo Ren.    
  
\----------------   
  
Something is singing in his head as the lightsaber fills his hand, a strange sort of humming song. Harmonising, he thinks, with his pounding heartbeat. It’s calm, in a way he’s never been. Here is his enemy, here is one of the two people he will protect. It’s cold, snow falling around them. Darkness wells from between the stars.    
  
He makes a choice.    
  
**_Snap-hiss_ ** .    
  
\--------------


End file.
